>"a bribery scandal involving distributors selling Microsoft products"

I'm not sure Best Buy reflects that poorly on Microsoft.

>"They reportedly have raised over $5.5 billion from many large companies including Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Nokia, Apple, Google, Yahoo, American Express, Adobe, SAP, Nvidia, and eBay, plus investment firms such as Stanford, Hewlett Foundation, Mayo Clinic, and Charles River Ventures."

Again, doesn't reflect that poorly on Microsoft.

>Munich reverses course, may ditch Linux for Microsoft

Is a software sales company supposed to not sell software? That's what they do. How does that reflect poorly on them?

You're hating a corporation for doing what corporations do, and hating a tech company for things tech companies do. Like I said, it's time to get over it or just shut the hell up and ignore it. I understand that your religion tells you to hate Microsoft. But some of us don't subscribe to that line of thinking, and you're ruining it for the rest of us by controlling conversations and shutting down discussions.

> I'm not sure Best Buy reflects that poorly on Microsoft.

Best buy didn't enter into it, you probably did not fully read the link. This was about Romania, not about the USA.

> Again, doesn't reflect that poorly on Microsoft.

It does, because IV is best described as a patent troll in a nice suit.

> Is a software sales company supposed to not sell software? That's what they do. How does that reflect poorly on them?

Because they struck a deal to relocate their headquarters to Munich if and only if the government would ditch linux.

I don't have any religion, I'm just against companies that engage in illegal acts. That 'some of us don't subscribe to that line of thinking' is a pity, I'm not shutting anybody down, nor am I controlling the conversation. In fact, I'm happy that MS open sourced this code.

I agree Intellectual Ventures is a patent troll, but are they that involved with Microsoft? Their founder Nathan Myhrvold is the former CTO of Microsoft (he left in 2000), but I don't see any other connections.

> You're just being an asshole.

Ah ok, that explains it. 'Nutjob', 'Asshole', when arguments fail resort to namecalling. I've got nothing against you, but I have my personal reasons for disliking Microsoft, I don't know what it is you want from me but you seem to be taking this a bit too personal. Try not to associate too much with your favorite brands, lest someone would start to think you have a stake in this.

Note that I'm here with my full name and rep out in the open whereas you're the HN equivalent of an anonymous coward.

Pot, Kettle, etc.

For the record, jacquesm has been civil while detailing his criticisms of Microsoft. The irony of your post is that you are behaving like an asshole, but you don't see it that way because you are blinded by your loyalty to a singular entity or opinion/viewpoint. It's ok to disagree with someone (though I disagree with pg's stance on down voting b/c you disagree), but it's not ok to resort to name calling just to prove your point.

I'm sorry, I don't see jacquesm being all that civil. It started off well enough, but they have been spreading FUD ever since. The links they're posting about how "evil" Microsoft has been this year have been argued against, but jacquesm never bothered acknowledging that. They just continued repeating "Microsoft is evil", which is exactly what has me so pissed.

If you don't try to follow Microsoft news, you might not see how frustrating it is. Everywhere on the Internet (save for Paul Thurrott's site) shuts down any Microsoft news immediately, drowning out any legitimate conversation with complaints about how evil Microsoft is. And if you challenge that by saying they work just like any other company, the troll says "yeah but I hate them all" followed with "this article is about Microsoft, not about Apple". Yet only a certain few companies manage to draw such ridiculous levels of trolling. Hell, look at the Amazon Echo announcement the other day. Two articles made it to the front page, and both were filled with "but NSA lol it's a trap".

If I'm an asshole, it's only because I bothered to call out jacquesm. I'm not going to apologize for anything I said. jacquesm is trolling this article with deception and bad intentions, ignoring any arguments they don't like or doesn't fit their worldview, and most certainly is not civilly defending their criticisms.

I really cannot stress my frustration enough, and I see it in others as well. If you don't use Microsoft products, it's easy to think you're just having fun and not doing anything wrong when you come into a thread and begin a discussion about everything Microsoft has done wrong. For some reason, Microsoft is one of the few companies where this is socially acceptable on the Internet, and people like me are shut down or, like you are doing, called a shill. I'm not loyal to Microsoft. I'm running Windows 7 in a RHEL 6 VM, using Firefox to post this. But guess what, my livelihood depends partially on supporting Microsoft products, so I follow them in the news.

All I want to do is make the point that coming into Microsoft threads and saying "Microsoft is evil" is not being a good citizen, not being productive, and not being civil. And if that's all you have to contribute to the thread, you're being an asshole.

I think it's hilarious that jacquesm can get away with focusing on the word "asshole" in my last comment, though, and ignoring the one point I've been repeating since the beginning:

Ignore it. Just move on. Go comment on articles that are interesting to you, involving companies or people or organizations you don't despise. Just stop fucking dragging down legitimate discussions with the line "they're evil", and stop pulling the defense "I just don't like evil companies, that's all". You're not innocent.

This is a fairly weak and circumstantial list, in my opinion.

Also, name a player that isn't equally or more abusive? If you mention Apple, Google, or Amazon, I'm going to disagree.

> This is a fairly weak and circumstantial list, in my opinion.

That's fine by me. I think they should really wise up and start to play nice. If IBM could do it then Microsoft can too.

> Also, name a player that isn't equally or more abusive?

Why, does that excuse them?

> If you mention Apple, Google, or Amazon, I'm going to disagree.

I would agree with that myself, so I won't be naming those.

On the IBM front I think you need to reconsider. http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-02/ibm-says-justice... (apologies for mobile link). I've read your comments throughout this thread, and am curious, what will MS have to do to get back in your good books? As far as I'm concerned, they're far less shady than google, oracle, yet your own views seem to be against giving them a chance.

That's a good question. Let me think about that.

Do you work for IBM? You know they have a history of missteps as well. Did you hear about that thing in WWII?